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Caroline Walls // Life studies at Studio Local

Words: Manuela Millan

Life Studies with caroline walls

when: 30th SeptemberTIME 3.00-5.30pm

Caroline Walls creates beautiful, fluid and bold art in a range of media and I've been following her since discovering her work a few years ago. I was delighted to hear that she will be running an interactive small-group life drawing workshop at at Studio Local on Sunday 30 September. In anticipation of this event I had a quick 10 questions with Caroline to find out more about her practice and her style.

I hope you enjoy getting to know her and her inspiration a little better, and if you want to come along on Sunday make sure to book soon as there are only a few spots left!

With a foundation in design my artistic practice is grounded in a strong sense of colour play, line and form. I am inspired by everyday human experiences and the fluidity and movement of the human body. These artworks explore the female body and the reduction of its form as a way of heightening its expressive power.

— Caroline Walls.

MM: When did you start to paint?

CW: I always painted throughout high-school but had a long break while I worked in design and art direction. I picked up the paint brush again in 2014 when doing a post-grad certificate at VCA outside of work hours and it reignited my love for it.

MM: What’s the most enjoyable part of doing what you do?

CW: I love the sense of autonomy art-making provides, not just in the creative sense when making a particular piece of work but also in my general day to day living. I enjoy the freedom of how I choose to spend my time and on what creative pursuits - this feels like a true luxury to me.

CW: I love going to the cinema and eating really good food - more often than not these two things go hand in hand. I also love the outdoors and heading out on a road trip down the coast to soak in the big skies and the fresh air.

MM: Did you grow up in a creative household?

CW: Yes, but not in the obvious sense, my mum is a wonderful cook and loves to make feasts for friends and family and dad has a creative mind when it comes to numbers, problem solving and entertaining so together they made for a very lively, vibrant and open household that encouraged a sense of play.

MM: What are you listening to right now?

CW: Sigur Rós is on high rotation at the moment..I love painting to their quite ethereal sound.

MM: What is the first thing you do in the morning?

CW: I’d like to say something mindful and pure but in reality I tend to respond to emails that have come through overnight! This allows me to get out bed and focus on the creative work with a clearer mind.

MM: Best advice given or received?

CW: An old boss said to be many years ago when I was working in art direction - 'Don’t live for the weekend, you need to find the joy every day’ . It stuck with me and my take away from that was that I needed to find something I loved doing so much that I didn’t find myself counting down the days of my working week..it took quite a few more years to achieve this but I feel very lucky to have found that thing that makes me tick.

MM: What are your hopes for the next few years?

CW: As always I hope to continue to grow and expand in my art-making. I really feel like I am only at the very beginning of my exploration into art-making and I am keen to delve much further into my own practise.

Caroline Walls (b. 1984) is an Australian artist working across a number of media, including painting, drawing, soft sculpture, and print-making. Walls creates work with a skilled and fluid approach to aesthetics, focusing on the female form as her central subject. She graduated with a First-class Honours degree in Visual Communication and Design from Swinburne University (2006) and recently attended the Victorian College of the Arts where she completed a post-graduate certificate in Visual Arts.

Caroline lives and works in Melbourne, Australia after spending extensive time abroad living in both London and NYC. Walls worked as a designer and art director for fashion and luxury lifestyle brands for 10 years before moving into art-making full-time. Caroline has had 3 solo exhibitions of here work, with the most recent two in 2017 selling out. She looks forward to presenting her fourth solo exhibition in 2018.

"With a foundation in design my artistic practice is grounded in a strong sense of colour play, line and form. I am inspired by everyday human experiences and the fluidity and movement of the human body. These artworks explore the female body and the reduction of its form as a way of heightening its expressive power."

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We hope you enjoy this Q&A and a selection of some of our favourite works from Cerberus. Make sure to check out the full exhibition which opens on the 16th of August at Modern Times in Collingwood.

We had the pleasure to interview Silk Roy and Kirrily Anderson (Aka I and the others) two Melbourne based visual artists who collaborate to create different and interesting prints for Rainbird collection. Check out the collection here!